Dark Whimsy Favorites #21-25
Rick Retro’s Realm, Project #3: 40 Dark Whimsy Favorites in 80 Days, 1985-1987, Horrors: Lovecraftian and Little, Steves: King and Martin, and Brothers: Coen.
The countdown to my next review project continues. I’m doing an overview of 40 of my Dark Whimsy favorites!
The first 20 are:
#1 (1944) Arsenic and Old Lace
#2 (1959) The Mouse That Roared
#3 (1963) The Pink Panther
#4 (1965) The Sound of Music
#5 (1965) The Great Race
#6 (1968) The Love Bug
#7 (1973) The Sting
#8 (1975) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
#9 (1979) The Muppet Movie
#10 (1979) Being There
#11 (1980) Airplane!
#12 (1980) Oh! Heavenly Dog
#13 (1980) The Gods Must Be Crazy
#14 (1981) Arthur
#15 (1982) E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
#16 (1982) Tootsie
#17 (1983) The Man With Two Brains
#18 (1984) Romancing the Stone
#19 (1984) The Natural
#20 (1984) Electric Dreams
Still more 80s films. Still more movies that I’ve seen at least twice. Still more reviews that will probably award A+ grades:
#21 (1985) Re-Animator
I'm not sure if there will be enough Whimsy to qualify, but if it does, this horror comedy will certainly be Dark Whimzy, not Dark Whimsy.
#22 (1986) Stand by Me
Less Dark than almost anything else based on a Steven King work, but still Dark enough. And easily the very best film based on a King story, in my opinion, at least that I’ve seen.
#23 (1986) Little Shop of Horrors
A DW score of 13.0, the maximum possible, would not surprise me.
#24 (1987) Raising Arizona
Won't be the last film from the Coen brothers to make this list.
#25 (1987) Roxanne
Steve Martin is on our list again, having something of a nose for Whimsy. Dark enough? Dunno.
#26-30 will be revealed tomorrow!
Originally posted to text group 2025-01-13
Last updated 2025-07-02
Text Group Comments:
R: Raising Arizona is the movie I immediately thought of when you announced this list without even trying to think about which movies would be in.
W: I still have never seen that!!!